Recently, South Korean rolling stock manufacturer Hyundai Rotem announced that its joint venture with South Korean railway giant KORAIL has successfully won a high-speed rail export contract in Uzbekistan, including a project for the supply and maintenance of electrically distributed high-speed trains, with a total value of 270 billion won (about 185 million euros). When the good news was transmitted back to South Korea, local media reported one after another, praising this move as marking the official entry of South Korea's high-speed rail technology to the international stage and opening a new chapter in the overseas export of South Korea's high-speed rail trains.
According to the contract, the ROK will export to Uzbekistan six UTY EMU-250 high-speed trains with a speed of up to 250 kilometers per hour, each with 7 carriages and 389 seats, a total of 42 cars, and at the same time, provide maintenance warranty services for 2 years and 9 months of maintenance. This type of high-speed rail is based on South Korea's KTX-Eum, or EMU-260, and adopts a power dispersion mode.
After winning this contract, the South Korean side will carry out refined customization according to the special geographical environment and railway operation scenarios of Uzbekistan to ensure that the train can adapt to the local complex terrain and climatic conditions, including replacing the bogie suitable for 1520mm broad gauge, installing an efficient power unit compatible with the local power system, and taking special measures to ensure that the train can provide stable and reliable high-performance performance even in desert areas and high temperature environments.
At the same time, at the request of the Uzbek side, the South Korean side will also modify these trains, including adding special VIP carriages. Since most of the platforms in Ukraine are old-fashioned platforms with a low height of only 200 mm, a built-in staircase will be added to the car. Some long-distance trains will also be equipped with dining cars.
In order to promote the improvement of local industrial technology in Uzbekistan, the South Korean side has handed over about 10% of the train parts to local companies in Uzbekistan. South Korean companies are responsible for manufacturing 87 percent of the train's components, including key electric traction systems, braking systems, transformers and passenger doors. This strategy not only promotes industrial cooperation between the two countries, but also provides 128 Korean small and medium-sized parts manufacturers with valuable opportunities to successfully enter the international market and expand their overseas business footprint.
In addition, the Ukrainian-Korean sides reached a memorandum of understanding on railway cooperation. The memorandum covers a number of areas, including the exchange of high-speed rail operation and maintenance technology, the construction of train bases, and the joint training and technical seminars of relevant technical personnel. The move aims to strengthen the in-depth cooperation between the two countries in the field of railways, promote technology sharing and the construction of talent teams.
However, these high-speed rail vehicles are not used for the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which is about to start construction. According to an executive of the Uzbek railway department, the trains, which have three seat categories of VIP, business and general, will run on three lines with a total of 1,216 kilometers: Tashkent-Bukhara, 430 kilometers of Bukhara-Khiva and 96 kilometers of Mesken-Nukus, according to a management of the Uzbek railway department.
To ensure the success of the project, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, together with the Export-Import Bank of Korea, has provided a full loan of 185 million euros to Uzbekistan through the Foreign Economic Cooperation Fund (EDCF) at a very competitive ultra-low interest rate of 0.1% per annum. With a repayment period of up to 35 years and a 10-year grace period, the financial support paves the way for the export of South Korea's high-speed rail technology to Uzbekistan.